Astros surge late again

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The Astros are feeling the love these days, especially Wednesday night from the electric crowd at Minute Maid Park after Miguel Tejada hit his walk-off single to left.

“When I got the hit and I was running to first base, I could feel the fans and their screams and that made it more emotional to me,” Miguel Tejada said. “Then you see Pudge, and that makes one feel good.”

This veteran team is starting to believe in each other, and it’s quite evident.

“We believe in what we have,” Tejada said. “And I feel that anybody who steps up to the plate right now we expect them to do something good. It’s like everybody. It’s not just one guy. Everybody believes, and that’s why I think we’ve been successful.”

Now, for Ivan Rodriguez:

“Our team is very positive,” he said. “Right now we’re very close.”

Although Rodriguez hasn’t been around in Houston long, he has been told by Astros teammates that the Astros usually make a late push.

“It’s my first year here, but all my teammates have been telling me that we always have a good second half every year,” he said. “We’ve been seeing that. I’ve been seeing that. We go to L.A. and get two games and win two games and come back here home with a full house, and to sweep St. Louis here is big. We just have to keep that same intensity Friday and try to keep going.”

Roy Oswalt didn’t earn the decision, but he was awesome Wednesday. If he doesn’t miss Ryan Ludwick’s leadoff grounder back to the mound in the seventh, he likely would have won 2-1.

Nonetheless, he held his own against the Cardinals’ Chris Carpenter.

“Anytime you go up against somebody like Carpenter, you’re going to have to throw pretty close to shutout ball,” Oswalt said. “He’s competitive. He’s going to keep the score down and we were able to scratch a few runs off on him. I knew if I could keep the game close we’d have a chance. I saw his pitch count kinda getting up. I thought he may leave after the seventh, but he came out for the eighth and finished it. I kept my pitch count down to where I might get to the eighth and ninth inning. Just a key situation came up where we had to score some runs there. Lance came up and drove the ball to left.”

And, yes, Roy Oswalt expects a second-half surge.

“We’ve been doing this since I got here,” he said. “First half is to play to keep close. Second half is to gain ground and maybe catch up and go ahead by the end.”